By Scott Gilfoid: Former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (30-1, 24 KO’s) will be looking to regenerate himself this Saturday night against the tough unbeaten NABF light heavyweight champion Denis Grachev (12-0-1, 8 KO’s) at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Bute, 32, needs this victory in order to prove to himself that he’s still got what it takes to be a top fighter in the sport.

Bute also needs a victory over the 30-year-old Grachev to move onto a much bigger fight against IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch, who savagely took Bute’s International Boxing Federation title from him last May in destroying him in front of a packed house full of Froch’s British boxing fans in Nottingham, England.

Bute said to ESPN “Some people think I’m finished, but I can assure them Lucian Bute is not finished.”

The fight against Grachev will be a good barometer to tell if Bute has anything left, because a prime Bute would easily dismiss the powerful Grachev. However, if Bute has suddenly lost his boxing skills due to age, then Grachev will destroy him just as Froch did. There’s nothing special about what Froch did to Bute last May in beating him by a 5th round TKO. Froch just looked an average, slow slugger and Bute accommodated Froch by standing directly in front of him for the entire five rounds of the fight.

Bute even backed up to the ropes, which is something you never do against a slow slugger like Froch. This really made it easy for Froch to finish Bute off, because he wouldn’t have been able to do this if Bute had stayed in the center of the ring and used constant movement to tease the slow-footed, slow-handed Froch like the talented Andre Dirrell had done in his fight with him in 2009. Bute had the blueprint there from that fight in how to beat Froch, but he failed to use what was already on video.

Grachev is much like Froch with his fighting style and Bute is going to have to take this fight really seriously if he wants to come out on top. Bute can’t stand in front of Grachev because this guy will bludgeon him into submission with right hands if he’s allowed to. Bute, as good as he is, he doesn’t have the chin to stand in front of Grachev to try and knock him out. I have no doubts that Bute can stop Grachev if he focuses on throwing body shots, but he can’t do it by remaining stationary like he did in the Froch fight.